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This video makes Australia look as stupid and ass-backwards as the United States. What explains it? Is the garbage it highlights unusual, or really mainstream? Am curious to hear from Australian readers.
Some of these comments come from the leader of the opposition, likely to be the next prime minister, others from his supporters in the media. The Australian newspaper is Murdoch, with everything that goes with that. What seems to have happened is that what was basically a good government as regards the things that most people care about, like the economy, had a great deal of difficulty communicating its message to the public and made a series of small missteps. This combined with implicit sexism of the same kind seen in, say, the US to make a toxic mix. A government that would have sailed to re-election had it been lead by a man was heading for certain defeat. The Labor party has attempted to avert this by dumping her in favor of a man, and this might work (though the odds are still against it). Bottom line: the sexism would probably have been insufficient on its own to bring her down, but combined with the small errors she made her position was untenable.
A large part of this has been demagogue tactics by the opposition to destabilise what they took to be a vulnerable leader. Gillard took the top office through a change in party leadership, which is never the way to an electorate's heart. The leader of the opposition Tony Abbott, noted for his aggressive political style, attacked Gillard on a number of fronts, concentrating on cutting away at her legitimacy as the leader on a number of fronts: making her seem beholden to the (parliamentary minority) environmental interests, questioning her integrity, and all kinds of digs at her character. A number of them pervasively sexist. The effect has been made more insidious by the fact that he and his allies have been doing this character assassination for years. What you see is the effect of a concentrated campaign of stirring up mud in Australian public opinion. It's not a surprise that Tony Abbot polls abysmally with female voters, but nonetheless he is the forerunner for the coming elections.
It is to Australia's great shame that there is so much traction for attacks of this type. Similarly, racism in Australia is extremely common and sometimes reaches shocking extremes in prevalence and extent. Australians are to a large degree convinced that they don't have problems with racism or sexism, which seems ridiculous to outsiders, but isn't really a surprise given the general ability of populations to appreciate their own biases and objectionable behaviour.
A quick comment on Marinus Ferreira's claim that racism in Australia is extremely common. The available data indicates that explicit racism is relatively rare; certainly it is less common than in the US. The best data concerning explicit racism comes from Kevin Dunn at the University of Western Sydney.
One indicator – one of the few on which I am able to find data for the US – concerns inter-racial marriage. Opposition to inter-ractial marriage varies significantly across Australian states, from a high of 13% in New South Wales to a low of 4% in the Australian Capital Territory. Even the high rate is lower than the US average.
Undoubtedly there has been an element of sexism, but it is compounded by political and perhaps personality factors. I have not seen such attacks against Penny Wong, who is a senior minister in the same government, Asian born, openly lesbian sharing a child with her partner, and as irreligious as Julia Gillard. The latter trait is nowhere as important in Australian politics as it is in the US: only 12% consider the religious beliefs of politicians relevant when voting.
But it is relevant to the misogyny comments made by Julia Gillard. Tony Abbott makes a point of being a staunchly Catholic family man versus the "deliberately barren" Julia Gillard (an epithet applied by Liberal senator Bill Heffernan against her in 2007). Abbott opposed wide access to the abortifacient RU486 as Health Minister in an earlier Liberal government, though lost his veto in this matter some years later after a cross-party group of woman politicians put up a bill to remove this power.
Amusingly, Kevin Rudd, now back as PM, is supposed to have claimed that
"The reason Julia Gillard is in power is because of a deal she did with the Australian Christian Lobby and [conservative union boss] Joe De Bruyn."
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/rudd-outed-pms-gay-marriage-support-20120721-22gxy.html
I agree with David Duffy's comment, but I must correct one inaccuracy: Senator Wong is not irreligious. She is a practicing Christian, and active in her local church in Adelaide. It helps to know that her denomination (which is the third-largest in Australia; we're not talking about some tiny group here) is extremely progressive. By US Evangelical standards, she might as well be an atheist, but by Commonwealth or European standards, she's a mainline-liberal Protestant.
The wider point is correct, though. In particular, the fact that this isn't widely known just goes to show how little people care about religion in Australian politics. When she took over, more was made of Ms Gillard's haircut than her religion (which, admittedly, is slightly relevant since her partner is a hairdresser).
Just a thought on the comparison between Gillard and Wong, David. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems you're trying to suggest that the treatment of Gillard isn't largely explained by sexism. I think it is interesting that we don't see the same kind of sexism directed at Wong as was done at Gillard, but there are many factors which would seem to explain this. Possibly because of her sexuality and appearance others don't wish to attack her for fear of being labelled 'racists' or 'homophobes', but my initial intuition is that as finance minister she was simply never as visible as Gillard was as PM making her less of a target in the eyes of casual sexists. I would indeed, suspect, that there would be many swing voters who don't know who Penny Wong is and if we think it likely that swing voters chose what party to vote for based largely on how much they like the leader of the party there would seem to be little to gain for the opposition or Murdoch in attacking her.
Anyway it will be an interesting measure of how far we've come should Wong become leader of the Labor Party at any point.
(PS- Thanks Brian for posting this)
My Aussie wife said her family (part Canadian, part Aussie) left Australia for California because of Antipodean sexism. When she told me about Aussie sexism, I thought she was exaggerating. Now I realize that she wasn't. The misogyny to which Gillard was subjected would — here in Canada — have discredited her opponents as filthy, unelectable cretins. Any woman who had been so sickeningly abused by her opponents would, pretty much anywhere in North America, have won a landslide victory.
Also, RE: the importance of religion in Australian Politics- it seems Christian or Atheist is ok, but not Muslim: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-02/ed-husic-subjected-to-anti-muslim-attacks/4793534
I'd say racism is worse here than most European countries I've been to. The anti-Aboriginal feeling is entrenched in society & most of the (mostly white) immigrants since WWII simply fell into line with that. Sexism is an underlying part of what is worshiped as part of the traditional Australian male character, the 'honest bloke', which also includes the anti-Aboriginal/immigrant sentiment. Religion is only a problem if you're Muslim in which case you're damned by politicians & especially by the media (Sydney, the largest city, has four newspapers & all of them are right of centre.)
Most of the major players in government appear to be ardent Christians, except the ex-PM which became a stick she was beaten with by radio shows. The person most likely to be the next PM at the upcoming election, Tony Abbott, is widely considered to be of a very 1950's white male Catholic mind set.
I'm sure that visibility is a partial explanation – a reluctance to be seen as misogynistic by critics doesn't seem to have helped Julia Gillard. However, a list of many explanations regarding her political demise, many of which I suspect of equal relevance:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/survey-facts-are-polls-apart-20130703-2pcgx.html
More generally, on whether Australia is particularly sexist:
Female philosophers (23%, about the same as US)
http://www.aap.org.au/Resources/Documents/publications/IPWPP/IPWPP_ExecutiveSummary.pdf
Female politicans (lower house 24%, upper 35%, 41st of 143, same as Canada)
http://www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/wmnmap12_en.pdf
Corporate board membership (12%, slightly lower than US)
http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-Tanzania/Local%20Assets/Documents/Deloitte%20Article_Women%20in%20the%20boardroom.pdf
In terms of institutions, about the same as best of the Anglosphere, for whatever that is worth.
On Aussie Sexism: an Anecdote.
In 1980 I took up a Commonwealth Scholarship to study for a PhD at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Shortly before we left the UK, I married my then fiancée, Zena (we had actually been together for three years) who left a job as a junior marketing executive with Proctor and Gamble with the expectation that she could get a similar job in Australia and that she could then support me in the style to which I would wish to become accustomed. With my scholarship and her anticipated salary we expected a life-style of modest middle-class affluence. (I used to jokingly explain to friends that I was looking forward to a life as a kept man.) Zena had a good degree in from Cambridge, putting her in the top 1% s far as academic ability is concerned, and she had spent enough time in the workforce to demonstrate that she did not just have an academic intellect but had kind of brains needed to succeed in the business world. Perhaps I should add that Zena is not as off-puttingly intellectual as I tend to be, but had worked as a barmaid and as a cashier in in a clothing store and had learned to get on well with all sorts of people. She had good references from her previous employers who were sad to see her go. In other words, we thought that she would be in Australia what she had been in Britain, a highly employable young woman. And once we had found our feet, she started applying for jobs at a similar level to the one she had left.
Well, it was a long sorry saga of struggle and despair. Her idea of a suitable job had to be revised downwards again and again. So far from being an asset, a Cambridge degree seemed to be almost a drawback given the anti-intellectual attitudes prevailing in many businesses. (‘We’re just seat-of-the-pants kind of guys’ was one of the comments she heard, meaning, presumably, ‘We are a bunch of clueless wallies’ who don’t bother to think about what we do’.) But the real problem was sexism and the routine dismissal of her as a plausible employee, simply because she was a woman. This came out particularly when she finally made it to a job interview. They asked her (as you do) what skills and abilities she could bring the company. ‘Well to begin with ‘ she replied’ I think I have a good analytical mind …’ ‘Oh’ came the response, ‘that’s unusual for a woman!’. Now the fact that they might THINK this was bad enough, but even in 1980, Zena was totally gobsmacked that they thought it was OK to SAY it . But clearly they did, as presumably did many others, and the consequence was that she never got that cushy job as a marketing executive that we were hoping for and that she eventually retrained as a social worker, which is now her profession.
Now all that was a long time ago and things may have changed in Oz since then (I can’t say for sure since Zena and I have spent the last 27 years in New Zealand.) And perhaps I should add that despite these drawbacks we both came to ‘love a sunburnt country ‘ and that look back on our time in Oz with nostalgia. But in those days Oz was clearly a far more sexist society than the UK where a smart young woman such a Zena was would have had no trouble getting a job in junior management (as indeed she did not). And I am inclined to think that as English-speaking countries go, Australia is still at the sexist end of the spectrum.
On a related topic, readers should check out my AJP obituary of Annette Baier in which I quote her explanation of why she left her job a the University of Sydney.
There is a backward, reactionary element to Australian society, just like any other. I'd suggest that the biggest differentiator between Australia and other countries in this regard is that our politicians have been unusually adept at capitalising on these prejudices, no doubt aided by a supine media. Accordingly to wikipedia, we invented dog-whistle politics: hooray for us.
On the other hand, when the Queen visited Australia a couple of years ago, she was met by our (female) Governor General and our female Prime Minister. So the top three spots in Australian politics were filled by women, which is a noteworthy state of affairs, IMHO.
I'm afraid Andrew W, that New Zealand has Australia beat as regards women in top jobs. From 2001-2006, our Head of State was a woman (the Queen ) her deputy , the Governor-General was a woman (Dame Silvia Cartwright), the Prime Minister was a woman (Helen Clark) and the Chief Justice was a woman (Dame Sian Elias). Furthermore Helen Clark was the second female Prime Minister and Dame Silvia was the second female Governor-General
As a white-midle-class-male residing in Australia, the existence of casual sexism and casual racism is hard to deny. It's not that there is necessarily a high degree of 'explicit sexism' or 'explicit sexism', as most Australians would say they have no problem with women or persons of another race (and point to specific examples of this). But as a society, sexism and racism are completely ingrained in the very way we speak among ourselves and treat others, to the extent that the casual perpetrator probably would not think there was anything wrong with what they said or did.
The treatment of Julia Gillard is probably the most recent public example of sexist behaviour in Australia. Last year, Anne Summers gave a very interesting lecture the treatment of Julia Gillard and it is well worth a read: http://annesummers.com.au/speeches/her-rights-at-work-vanilla/ I experienced this treatment of Julia Gillard myself, when talking politics with colleagues (in the law) or close friends (in other industries). And people just seemed to think that was okay.
It was not one sided either. Within the ALP (Julia Gillard's political party), the of a young woman seeking preselection in the seat of Gellibrand (that is currently held by Australia's first female Attorney-General who is sadly retiring from politics), was shocking: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/dirt-flies-in-gellibrand-preselection-20130408-2hhe7.html
NB: In relation to Senator Wong, I think that the person who commented as "Pseudonym" may have missed this one: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/senator-david-bushbys-cat-call-at-penny-wong-sparks-sexism-row/story-e6frfkvr-1226067184590)
Short answer, Australia is sexist. Sure, there are a lot of us who are not, but on the whole, it exists and it is a much bigger problem than a lot of people are willing to admit.
The same goes with racism in Australia. It would take a short essay to explain the Adam Goodes affair properly (the most recent public example of racism), but for anyone interested, I suggest reading (and then reading more widely to understand the full context):
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/the-day-nicky-winmar-drew-the-line-20130416-2hydd.html (for a brief understanding of racism in the AFL, and the iconic moment that was remembered in the "indigenous round" this year)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Goodes (to understand who Adam Goodes is. You can trawl through the Wikipedia links to understand the various awards and accolades – In breif, he is one of the most successful AFL players to have played the game).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_McGuire (to understand who Eddie McGuire is).
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-25/goodes-gutted-but-places-no-blame/4712772 (to read about what happened on the night Sydney played Collingwood during the AFL "indigenous round").
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-29/eddie-mcguire-concedes-adam-goodes-gaffe-was-racial-vilification/4721642 (To read about what happened 5 days after the Sydney played Collingwood in the AFL "indigenous round").
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/why-being-called-an-ape-hurt-adam-goodes-so-much/story-e6frg6z6-1226654803999 (the media actually had to explain why it was such a "big deal").
And while I don't like Sam De Brito all that much, this blog entry that followed the incidents is a very frank summary of racism in Australia (WARNING, it contains very racist language): http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/culture/blogs/all-men-are-liars/getting-real-about-racism-20130529-2nb9h.html
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